My college housemate Diane is in Florence right now and I am so jealous. I saw Florence for the first time on a high school trip in 2000. It was not love at first sight (I preferred Venice). I returned in the summer of 2003 for a study abroad program and fell head over heels.

I told Diane that she has to go check out the street we lived in, and also see if “La Habitacion” is still there. (Is it evidence of globalization that a bunch of American college students studying in Florence spent many of their evenings down the street from their apartment in a Spanish tapas bar?) “Already planning on it,” she replied, and promised to send pictures.

As if I weren’t already jealous enough.

I don’t consider myself to have wanderlust. In fact, part of the reason I am pushing so hard on this job search is because I long to be able to put down roots somewhere. I wouldn’t even say I like to travel — I’m far too neurotic, and that can remove a lot of the enjoyment.

But lately, the urge to see Florence has been gnawing at me. I like the general idea of running away to Europe for some meandering travels — who doesn’t — but I would settle to just drop into Florence and stay. I mean, who wouldn’t want that too? Especially after the movie Under the Tuscon sun.

I’m too practical for vacations. The longest vacation I’ve taken since I started working was 5 days in Rhode Island with my family. I have this emergency fund sitting in the bank, squirreled away for all the just in cases. Just in case I lose my job. Just in case I have to dip into it because my next job doesn’t pay as well. Just in case.

And  while all those dollars sitting there for just in cases, provide a sense of security, am I being TOO conservative? Too cautious? I could take that money and live off of it for a year if I quit my job and went on a fulltime job hunt in DC. (attend every single networking event in town, and the like). Or, if I could somehow, some way wait it out here, I could wait for them to lay us all off and then run away to Europe for a few months, and then hit restart.

The trouble with the latter is that waiting it out keeps getting longer and longer. We weren’t even supposed to be here past December 2009. And I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I don’t know how much longer I can keep my life on hold.